Show some character

The adventures in writing are still continuing. This time the hurdle is characters, more specifically, a lack of personality with most of the characters.

The characters are only fulfilling their requirement to any given scene in a story. They generally don’t seem like actual people, which will make it somewhat difficult for a reader to care about what happens to them in a story. One of the books suggests doing an imaginary interview with a character to get a better feel for the character. It’s actually quite fun, so much so that I’ve managed to spend a bit more time on this exercise that I probably needed. But I’m not on a schedule for any writing, so I can afford to indulge myself a little.

It has been fun since the last blog post doing the tasks. It has just reinforced the need for good characters in a story. As a result, I’ve been paying more attention to any reading I’m doing to see how the characters are developed. I’m trying to get an idea of what I like/dislike and trying to understand if there are good reasons why the writer went the way he/she did with a character.

The plan is to try and write a same piece but have some good character development in it. Even if it’s only two people chatting in a queue at the local supermarket.